Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter

NEW YORK (AHN) -

Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter

New York, NY (AHN) -

The World Health Organization is sounding the alarm over H5N1 bird flu becoming human pandemic. Analysts are calling for immediate mass vaccinations of poultry.

The virus is already responsible for killing 54 people in Asia and appears to spread only by close interaction of humans with sick birds or infected poultry

The first reported strain of bird flu virus has been confirmed on a poultry farm in Mitsukaido, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Local media reported that officials from the agriculture ministry and Ibaraki prefectural government stated the bird flu virus is far less virulent than the avian flu virus that infected farms last year, and only a small percentage of chickens infected in Mitsukaido have died

China has isolated it's nature reserves and sent more than 3 million doses of bird flu vaccine to a remote western province after migratory birds were found dead from the H5N1 strain of bird-flu.

Poultry across far-flung Qinghai province, neighboring Tibet and Xinjiang, had become the "target of a compulsory vaccination campaign", reportedthe China Daily newspaper story